dogs, but the huskies went no faster; and then he caught the glitter
of something that flashed for a moment in the sun.

"Ah!" said Jean softly, as a bullet sang over his head. "He fires at
Jean de Gravois!" He dropped his whip, and there was the warm glow of
happiness in his little dark face as he leveled his rifle over the
backs of his Malemutes. "He fires at Jean de Gravois, and it is Jean
who can hamstring a caribou at three hundred yards on the run!"

For an instant, at the crack of his rifle, there was no movement
ahead; then something rolled from the sledge and lay doubled up in the
snow. A hundred yards beyond it, the huskies stopped in a rabble and
turned to look at the approaching strangers.

Beside it Jean stopped; and when he saw the face that stared up at
him, he clutched his thin hands in his long black hair and cried out,
in shrill amazement and horror:

"The saints in Heaven, it is the missioner from Churchill!"

He turned the man over, and found where his bullet had entered under
one arm and come out from under the other. There was no spark of life
left. The missioner was already dead.

"The missioner from Churchill!" he gasped again.

He looked up at the warm sun, and kicked the melting snow under his
moccasined feet.

"It will thaw very soon," he said to himself, looking again at the